Mexico City - Xochimilco

XOCHIMILCO FLOATING GARDENS, COYOACAN AND FRIDA KAHLO MUSEUM
Today your guide will take you to the famous Xochimilco Floating Gardens. This area is a large system of canals based on the original make-up of the city of Tenochitlan, as Mexico City was called before the arrival of the Spanish. When the first nomadic settlers arrived in the Valley of Mexico they found an enormous lake. As the years went by and their population grew, the land could no longer satisfy their agricultural needs. They solved the problem by devising a system of chinampas (floating gardens), rectangular structures akin to barges, which they filled with reeds, branches and mud. They planted the barges with willows, whose roots anchored the floating gardens to the lake bed, making a labyrinth of small islands and canals on which vendors carried flowers and produce grown on the chinampas to market. Today Xochimilco is the only place in Mexico where the gardens still exist. You will take a pleasant voyage through the canals in a colourfully painted traditional trajinera boat.
This is a very popular activity with the locals at the weekend when floating mariachis and food vendors punt alongside extended families and tourists out to enjoy a day in this ancient manner.
Walking through Coyoacan, you can imagine how it must have looked in the early 1900s. Today, Mexico City has sprawled to encompass the once lush vegetation of Coyoacan's tree-lined streets with colonial homes and museums, cafés, boutiques, restaurants, art studios and local artesanos that create a certain ambience and charm. The main square in Coyoacan is the Plaza Hidalgo and Jardin Centenario. These adjoined areas are in the centre of historical Coyoacan and form the zocalo with decorative hedges, fountains and trees. On the weekends this plaza is filled with people, artesanos and street vendors - a prime place for people-watching from the many restaurants, cafés and bars with outside seating around the two squares.
Murals depicting Mexico's history make up the cornerstone of Mexican art. Today you will visit the Museo Frida Kahlo (the Blue House). This was the home of Frida and Diego Rivera from 1934 to 1940, and the innovative building was designed for them by their friend, the architect and painter, Juan O'Gorman. The building featured in the Hollywood film 'Frida' and contains a few examples of Rivera's works and is filled with memorabilia. The Blue House displays a few pieces of Kahlo's art as well as other artists' paintings and pre-Hispanic objects and Mexican crafts that Frida collected